The wonders of the world

by John Loraine Abbott

EDDYSTONE LIGHT-HOUSE.

The Eddystone rocks, on which this celebrated light-house is built, are situated nearly south-south-west from the middle of Plymouth sound, being distant from the port of Plymouth nearly fourteen miles, and from the promontory called Ramshead, about ten miles. They are almost in the line, but somewhat within it, which joins the Start and the Lizard points; and as they lie nearly in the direction of vessels coasting up and down the channel, they were necessarily, before the establishment of a light-house, very dangerous, and often fatal to ships under such circumstances. Their situation, likewise, relatively to the bay of Biscay and the Atlantic ocean, is such that they lie open to the swells of both from all the south-western points of the compass; which swells are generally allowed by mariners to be very great and heavy in those seas, and particularly in the bay of Biscay. It is to be observed, that the soundings of the sea, from the south-west toward the Eddystone, are from eighty fathoms to forty, and that in every part, until the rocks are approached, the sea has a depth of at least thirty fathoms; insomuch that all the heavy seas from the south-west reach them uncontrolled, and break on them with the utmost fury.

The force and hight of these seas are increased by the fact that the rocks stretch across the channel, in a direction north and south, to the length of above one hundred fathoms, and by their lying in a sloping manner toward the south-west quarter. This striving of the rocks, as it is technically called, does not cease at low-water, but still goes on progressively; so that, at fifty fathoms westward, there are twelve fathoms of water; neither does it terminate at the distance of a mile. From this configuration it happens, that the seas are swollen to such a degree, in storms and heavy gales of wind, as to break on the rocks with the utmost violence. It is not surprising, therefore, that the dangers to which navigators were exposed by the Eddystone rocks should have made a great commercial nation desirous to have a light-house erected on them. The wonder is that any one should have had sufficient resolution to undertake its construction. Such a man was, however, found in the person of Mr. Henry Winstanley, of Littleburgh, in Essex, who, being furnished with the necessary powers to carry the design into execution, entered on his undertaking in 1696, and completed it in four years. So certain was he of the stability of his structure, that he declared it to be his wish to be in it “during the greatest storm which ever blew under the face of the heavens.” In this wish he was but too amply gratified; for while he was there with his workmen and light-keepers, that dreadful storm began, which raged most violently on the night of the twenty-sixth of November, 1703; and of all the accounts of the kind with which history has furnished us, no one has exceeded this in Great Britain, nor has been more injurious or extensive in its devastations. On the following morning, when the storm was so much abated, that an inquiry could be made, whether the light-house had suffered from it, nothing was to be seen standing, with the exception of some of the large irons by which the work was fixed on the rock; nor were any of the people, nor any of the materials of the building ever found afterward.

THE EDDYSTONE LIGHT-HOUSE.

In 1709, another light-house was built of wood, on a very different construction, by Mr. John Rudyerd, then a silk-mercer on Ludgate hill. This very ingenious structure, after having braved the elements for forty-six years, was burned to the ground in 1755. On the destruction of this light-house, that excellent mechanic and engineer, Mr. Smeaton, was selected as the fittest person to build another. He found some difficulty in persuading the proprietors, that a stone building, properly constructed, would be in every respect preferable to one of wood; but having at length convinced them, he turned his thoughts to the shape which would be most suitable to a building so critically situated. Reflecting on the structure of the former buildings, it seemed to him a material improvement to procure, if possible, an enlargement of the base, without increasing the size of the waist, or that part of the building placed between the top of the rock and the top of the solid work. Hence he thought a greater degree of strength and stiffness would be gained, accompanied with less resistance to the acting power. On this occasion, the natural figure of the waist, or bole of a large spreading oak, occurred to our sagacious engineer.

With these very enlightened views, as to the proper form of the superstructure, Mr. Smeaton began the work on the second of April, 1757, and completed it on the fourth of August, 1759. Its appearance, as completed, may be seen in the cut on the preceding page. The rock, which slopes toward the south-west, is cut into horizontal steps, into which are dovetailed, and united by a strong cement, Portland stone and granite. The whole to the hight of thirty-five feet from the foundation, is a solid body of stones, engrafted into each other, and united by every means of additional strength that could be devised. The building has four rooms, one over the other, and at the top a gallery and lantern. The stone floors are flat above, but concave beneath, and are kept from pressing against the sides of the building by a chain let into the walls. It is nearly eighty feet in hight, and since its completion has been assaulted by the fury of the elements, without suffering the smallest injury. To trace the progress of so vast an undertaking, and to show with what skill and judgment this unparalleled engineer overcame the greatest difficulties, would far exceed the limits of this work.